PM warned of triple-lock pension ‘hammer blow’

New Hayling Island Lidl is given green light by planners

PLANS to axe a key safeguard on the state pension could deal a hammer blow to scores of people in Portsmouth, the prime minster has been warned.

Ex-city council boss, Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson last night wrote to PM Theresa May urging her to guarantee a ’triple-lock’ protection.

The triple-lock state pension protection meant that each year it increased by the higher of the two rates of inflation or 2.5 per cent whichever was the most. Yesterday the PM refused to promise to keep the scheme.

Cllr Vernon-Jackson – the Liberal Democrat candidate for Portsmouth South – said this would hit pensioners in the city struggling on low incomes.

But the Tory’s candidate for the seat, Flick Drummond, hit back saying under a Conservative government pensioner incomes ‘will continue to increase’ saying only they were the only party that could ‘deliver a strong economy’.